European Union Bill
Baroness Stuart of Edgbaston Excerpts(15Â years, 8Â months ago)
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Ms Gisela Stuart (Birmingham, Edgbaston) (Lab)
I am sorry, but having written the constitution and having read the Lisbon treaty, I think that it is sheer sophistry to go on like this. May I just—
The Chairman
Order. We are not dealing with the Lisbon treaty. Can we please stick to the amendments before us?
Mr David
I will stick to the point. It is really important that Members recognise that there is a fundamental difference between the constitution and the treaty of Lisbon. I am more than happy to explain those differences, with your permission, Mr Hoyle, but I know that you want us to pursue the issue under discussion.
Mr David
I do not think that is the case at all. There are certain principles at issue that it is important we consider. One of the things that has marred the debate about Europe is the fact that too much expediency has been demonstrated. We need to talk about principles, and I would argue that an important one is at stake here. We have to make it clear that we are talking about political consistency, of which there is little among Government Members. Only in January last year, an hon. Gentleman said:
“The Conservatives want a referendum on the bulk purchasing of paper clips. That is nonsense. It does not stand up to any serious scrutiny, and I do not believe that if they were in government, they would put forward this proposal.”—[Official Report, 19 January 2010; Vol. 504, c. 238.]
I am tempted to have a competition to see whether anyone knows who might have said that, but I will just tell the Committee instead: yes, it was a Liberal Democrat, and yes it was the Under-Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, the hon. Member for Kingston and Surbiton (Mr Davey)—so much for consistency; so much for principles.
One of our main concerns about the Bill is the proposal that referendums could be held on highly technical issues that are not of constitutional significance. I am not suggesting that a future Labour Government would want to change the European treaty, but are the Government seriously suggesting that we should have a referendum on changing the voting system in the Council of Ministers on the environment from the special legislative procedure to the ordinary legislative procedure ?
Mr David
That is completely untrue. My argument is that there is a clear distinction between important constitutional issues and detailed minutiae. We can argue about the constitutional issues, but there is a big difference between them and a referendum on a raft of detailed minutiae. That is the big difference, which the Bill fails to acknowledge. The Bill is about having referendums on not the big issues, but the small, relatively unimportant ones.
Ms Gisela Stuart
It might come as a great relief to my hon. Friend to learn that I totally agree with him on this occasion. The Bill would weaken Parliament. Does he not find it extraordinary that a Bill that is meant to strengthen Parliament has in clause 5 a provision whereby, if in doubt, the matter will be given to the courts, which we cannot even remove in the way we can a Government, so it is an abdication?
Mr David
I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention; she makes a good point. However, the matter might not be quite as she has said. I will address that point later in my contribution, if I may.
Amendment 85 seeks to reaffirm the role of Parliament by giving it the power to consider and decide whether a proposed European change is significant enough to hold a referendum on. A special committee of both Houses—we call it the referendum committee—would be established, and it would consider the fine detail of the Government’s proposal. A recommendation would then go to both Houses, and if both Houses agreed that the change was important enough to warrant a referendum, a referendum would be held.
Mr David
What I am saying is that it depends on how “significance” is defined. I propose that, rather than our accepting a formula stating what is and what is not significant—which, as the Government themselves recognise, would fall at the first hurdle—responsibility for deciding what is important should be in the hands of parliamentarians. That would mean a transfer of decision-making power from the Executive to Parliament, of which we are in favour.
Ms Gisela Stuart
In our system the Government are drawn from the largest party in Parliament, and our Committees have a tendency to reflect the composition of Parliament. Would my hon. Friend’s committee also have an inbuilt Government majority?
Chris Heaton-Harris
I concur with my hon. Friend. Although I completely trust the Minister, I am slightly concerned that, in future, the role might be played by a Minister who was not so interested in those matters.
Ms Gisela Stuart
As a former Member of the European Parliament, the hon. Gentleman knows that the decision-making process on those minor amendments is infinitely longer in the European Parliament than in the House. I cannot remember how many Ministers for Europe there were in the 13 years of Labour government, but although I hate to say it, collective memory in this place is vested not in the Minister for Europe, but in the civil service. It is not even a Minister who makes the decision, but the civil service.
Chris Heaton-Harris
I concur with the hon. Lady. Several manoeuvres have taken place under previous Governments to determine who is Minister for Europe. The incumbents do not often stay in the role for long. Either they are, like the current incumbent, sufficiently ambitious to move up the ministerial pay scale, or they could easily be a journeyman on the way out. There is a historical context to some decisions about conferring a competence on an EU agency, and one needs to know what the agency was formed to do in the first place. I perceive such conferral as part of the mission creep in Europe. The European Commission, in establishing so many new agencies on such a regular basis, creates its own quangocracy.
When I was a Member of the European Parliament, it was difficult to police the spending and powers of an agency that the European Commission set up. Indeed, it was more difficult than policing some of the agencies and quangos that Governments of different complexions established in this country. If those agencies grab power and take more competences—even for a valid reason at the time—it is important that the Minister of the day understands the historical reasons for setting up the agencies and the intended limits on the powers. I was present when Eurojust and Euro-magistrate were set up—all part of the European public prosecutor, which I look forward to debating tomorrow, and all part of a significant salami-slicing approach of taking powers away from individual member states, and building something that nobody particularly wanted.
I understand that any ministerial decision on the significance test has a kind of double lock. It has been drawn as narrowly as possible, and I would therefore like the Minister to answer a couple of questions. First, I want to check whether any treaty change will require an Act of Parliament. I should like to think that Parliament will have every opportunity to vote for a referendum on such a change. That is why I support amendment 11. Secondly, the decision on significance is subject to judicial review to ensure that decisions not to hold a referendum only on genuinely insignificant matters are backed.
Those matters are important because, as I said, they are about getting the British people to trust the decisions that we make on Europe again. No member of the public wants decisions to be made behind closed doors, without reasonable explanation. I emphasise strongly to the Minister that the amendments are not about trust in him, his ability to undertake the role or his decisions. I would like clarification that Parliament will have a say because that is what we were sent here to do.
My hon. Friend the Member for Stone (Mr Cash) has tabled some tempting amendments to which the Minister and the hon. Member for Birmingham, Edgbaston alluded. In amendment 1, my hon. Friend manages to do a fantastic decapitation job on the Bill that would basically put all changes up for referendum. Although there is validity in my hon. Friend’s reasoning—he has seen through the years a lot more of what goes on in this place than I have—I do not want everything to be decided by a referendum. The British people will not take that. They want Parliament to say, “These are important decisions and there will be a referendum, a debate in both Houses, or an Act and a vote,” and the Bill makes such provisions. We can then choose whether to amend a measure so that it is subject to a referendum because we believe it to be so important. If we think that a subject is insufficiently important, we can decide not to have one. I am tempted by amendment 1, but I am simply unable to support it for those reasons.
I was tempted by amendment 1 because of the accession exemption, which the hon. Member for Caerphilly and a number of hon. Members mentioned. I tabled an amendment on accession to the EU that we will not decide on today, just as we will not decide on many amendments that have been tabled. Amendment 21 is exactly as the hon. Gentleman described it. It would mean that a 3.5% dilution of our voting powers on the European Council triggered a referendum. That is a catch-all—it is completely designed as such—so that we would have a referendum on the accession of big countries.
Given that, amendment 1 all of a sudden comes back into play and I am once again tempted. I would much rather have had a comprehensive and sensible debate on clauses 4 and 5 today or tomorrow or in extra time.
Mr Cash
I think that my hon. Friend can wait, if he does not mind.
I want to give an example that deals explicitly with a matter of immense importance that is coming up in the lift. In fact, it is not merely in the lift; the lift has come up and the doors are opening. Monsieur Fillon, the French Prime Minister, came over to see the Prime Minister specifically about this issue, and I have here the exclusive interview in The Times with Monsieur Fillon. I also had the opportunity to meet the French Minister for Europe and discuss the matter with him personally and privately.
There is no doubt about what they want or what they intend, which is effectively a twin-track treaty, which is a treaty entered into by us and the rest of the European Union—that is, with all 27 member states, in order to legitimise it within the framework of the treaty arrangements—so that they get their treaty and, within that treaty, an arrangement specifically designed to exclude the United Kingdom, even though we would be gravely affected by it. It would apply only to those other member states.
Clause 4(4) refers to
“the making of any provision that applies only to member States other than the United Kingdom”.
They look like innocuous words, but what do they actually mean? That exemption condition—in other words, no referendum, to put it bluntly and simply—means that there would be no opportunity for a referendum if the other member states agreed to go down that route. They may well do that, despite all the protestations to the contrary, some of which were rather subtly indicated by the Prime Minister in his press conference, albeit without excluding the idea of any such treaty; rather, it was merely on the supposition that that might not affect us as much as we believe, or as I believe the British people would believe if they saw it in black and white. What do those provisions include? In particular, they include arrangements of that kind relating to fiscal, political, social and employment measures, not to mention other matters that would affect the relationship between us and the rest of the European Union. A massive juggernaut would be created, through a form of extremely enhanced co-operation between those member states, that would have an enormous impact on the United Kingdom.
I have been looking at the balance of payments between us and the other member states. The figures, which I got from the Library, only bring us up to 2009, before the catastrophe that hit Europe occurred, and they are alarming. The imbalance in the balance of payments between us and the other member states has been moving critically in the wrong direction. I could give the precise figures—I may do so later—but we only have to consider the following example, which was on the “Today” programme this morning. If one had listened to the programme, one would have heard about Belgium, which is in massive crisis, with protests and people on the streets, and no Government for 22 months. Greece is in absolute chaos, with protests and implosion, while Ireland, with its political crisis, is totally imploding. Spain has 4 million unemployed, with 40% youth unemployment and people on the streets on a massive scale today. Similar problems are also occurring in Italy, and there have been riots and serious unrest in France, too.
The bottom line is that Europe is not working according to the economic governance that has been prescribed. Yet under what is proposed, the opportunity to address the very kind of treaty that would enhance the ability to confront us with a massive juggernaut of policies that have been going wrong—policies that would undermine the opportunity to grow from our 45% to 50% investment in Europe—would be severely depleted. That would be the most damaging kind of treaty that could be entered into. Indeed, as I said in The Times on the day that the French Prime Minister came over, it would be the kind of treaty that I would expect our Prime Minister to veto on behalf of the British people. However, we cannot have confidence that that would happen, because of the argument being presented. This Bill was introduced on 11 November, when we know that treaties of the kind that I have just described were already being anticipated, however damaging and disastrous they would be for the very people of this country who, if they knew the facts, would say, “I insist on a referendum on any treaty relating to arrangements of this kind.”
It would be an abomination for us to be confronted with the kind of arrangements that are being put into place—arrangements that would be so damaging to our growth and our relations with the European Union. That is why I say that this exemption provision has to be taken out of the Bill, for precisely the reasons that I have given. I do not need to enlarge on that point, but I absolutely insist that these provisions should be taken out. I look to the Minister, if he thinks that I am wrong, to give me a reasoned answer as to why.
Ms Gisela Stuart
I rise to speak to amendment 11, on which I hope the Committee will have time to vote. The amendment goes to the heart of what is wrong with the Bill. There are plenty of other things wrong with it: it is inconsistent, and all kinds of other things, but let us leave that aside for the moment. The hon. Member for Daventry (Chris Heaton-Harris) made an important point when he said that there was not a particularly clear party political divide on Europe, and that there were pros and cons on both sides. Very few people vote for their Member of Parliament because of the candidate’s view on Europe. They do, however, have a sense that, in a parliamentary democracy involving the Crown in Parliament, the House will ultimately have to decide on these matters.
What worries me about the whole construct of the Bill, which purports to strengthen Parliament, is that it will actually do no such thing. There is a sense of “Oh God, make me virtuous, but not in this Parliament”, and, because one Parliament cannot bind another, God knows what will happen in the next one. However, the default position will introduce the judiciary into the proceedings. It was bad enough that, when we were discussing parliamentary sovereignty, we were seriously asking whether it was a common law concept that would be open to judicial interpretation. It is not. The default position is that there must be a substantive vote in the Commons, and that that must be the ultimate decider if there is any doubt. There are manifold reasons why people have lost trust in the political process, but it is true to say that all parties have a tendency to behave differently once they are in government. They are much less inclined to ask the people than they were when they were out of government.
I am fundamentally in favour of the accession of Turkey to the European Union, but I would not like to go out and campaign in a referendum on that question. The Bill calls for referendums on significant changes. At the time when Turkey might accede to the European Union, its population will be larger than that of Germany. It will be the largest country in the EU by population, and its voting weight would therefore be larger than that of any other country. Anyone who argued that Turkey’s accession did not represent a significant change would be living in cloud cuckoo land.
Kwasi Kwarteng
My issue with a referendum on Turkish accession is that it would not really be within the jurisdiction of the House. Yes, we can hold a referendum on any transfer of powers from this country to the EU, and potentially veto that transfer. However, if the rest of Europe wanted Turkey to join the EU, we would have very little recourse to any action such as holding a referendum. That is my objection to the point about a referendum on Turkish accession.
Ms Stuart
I genuinely do not want to be patronising, but I might be about to sound patronising. An accession treaty would still have to be decided on by this House. We would have a say on whether Turkey would join. We might also go further and ask the people whether it should happen. Also, on the question of the transfer of new powers, there are very few areas—apart from the questions of a European standing army and joining the euro—in which the European Union does not already have powers in some shape or form. So this is not just a question of new powers; it is also a question of the strength of powers. If there were a question on the accession of Macedonia, I could argue that that was so insignificant that it would not affect our powers. However, the accession of a country such as Turkey is massive. So, to respond to the hon. Gentleman’s question: this House—or perhaps the people—will decide whether Turkey joins the European Union, because the accession of a member state that would be larger than any of the others represents a significant change.
I shall return to amendment 11. There is so much wrong with this place, and my lungs are still full of dust, so my voice will go at any moment. I am sure that that will be a great relief to quite a number of people, not least those on my own Front Bench.
Amendment 11 states:
“If the Minister’s opinion is that the effect of that provision in relation to the United Kingdom is not significant the Minister must seek Parliamentary approval for his opinion”,
and the approval must be on the basis of a substantive vote. If we make this open to judicial review—I am fully aware that some argue that judicial review is never on the substance, but only on whether the Government misled themselves in the process or incorrectly applied the law—we need to be aware that if this House allows decisions to be taken outside, it will weaken itself.
Martin Horwood
Is not the logic of the hon. Lady’s position that the significance condition in clause 3, talking about the simplified original procedure, should have been in clause 2 and then applied to all issues relating to referendums? Why, then, was that not a Labour amendment instead of the rather strange committee-based structure that Labour Front-Bench Members have proposed?
Ms Stuart
There are plenty of inherent inconsistencies both in the original Bill and in the amendments. I was involved in the tabling of amendment 11, which makes it clear that if there is any doubt, it should be resolved by this House.
As a final observation, in our Parliament, the Executive always has a permanent majority. We can rely on the strength of this House only if there are sufficient Back-Bench Members who defy their Front-Bench Members. I see the Conservative Benches full of Members, so let me point out frankly that tonight provides them with a chance to show whether they have the guts and the courage of their convictions. They said all sorts of things in the process of their election and now they have an opportunity to defy their Front-Bench team, support an amendment tabled by a majority of Members of their own side and restore faith to this place.
Mr Clappison
What a great pleasure it is to follow the hon. Member for Birmingham, Edgbaston (Ms Stuart). As to the generality of her comments, I found nothing in what she expressed to the Committee to contradict my experience over five years of the European Scrutiny Committee. I intend to be as brief as possible, because I know that other Members wish to speak and that important amendments on other issues are due for debate later. I am sure that my hon. Friends share my wish to debate those important issues, particularly accession.
Let me say a few words in support of amendment 11, on which I shall seek a separate vote and hope I am lucky enough to achieve it. By way of introduction I should say that, in seeking to establish that a referendum is required before certain steps are taken, the Bill is a great improvement on the existing position. The Bill is also a significant improvement in requiring other steps, such as an Act of Parliament or a vote of this House where a referendum is not required.
I am genuinely concerned, however, that there remain some very significant gaps in the scheme of the Bill, and I believe that it is at this point in our detailed scrutiny that we should try to fill those gaps. It will be very disillusioning for all those whom we have promised and have led to expect that there will be a referendum on great transfers of power or great decisions in the European Union if that referendum does not take place. We want to do all that we can to avoid that sense of disillusionment. It is against that background that I seek to deal with the problem of the significance condition, to which hon. Members have referred.
Simply, amendment 11 would give Parliament a vote on whether certain transfers of power to the European Union are significant enough to warrant a referendum. As the Bill stands, the decision on whether matters are significant enough is in the hands of the Minister alone, subject to a challenge in the courts. Parliament does not get a say, however, at least on the question of whether there should be referendum.
Mr Lidington
In those conversations about parliamentary scrutiny, which I intend should begin as soon as possible, I hope that I can find complete agreement with my hon. Friend. However, he will know that if we are talking about arrangements that will govern how both Houses of Parliament deal with European business and the process of scrutiny, we ought to be striving towards a measure that can command broad support in both Houses, and across all the political parties represented therein.
The Bill is a radical piece of legislation to improve how we handle European business. As my hon. Friend the Member for New Forest West (Mr Swayne) pointed out, in a characteristically vigorous intervention, had the legislation been in force at the time, the treaties of Lisbon, Amsterdam, Nice and Maastricht would all have required a referendum before they could have been finally ratified.
The powers in the Bill include a referendum lock on treaty changes or decisions that transfer powers from the United Kingdom to the European Union. That is the case even if the measures used to transfer those competences or powers are the extensive self-amending provisions introduced by the treaty of Lisbon. The powers include requiring that important decisions—even if they do not transfer power or competence—are still in every case approved by an Act of Parliament. I want to put this beyond any doubt: the Bill will mean that any treaty change at all, whether using the ordinary procedure for amending a treaty or the simplified revision procedure, will have to be approved by primary legislation.
This is a vitally needed improvement. Under the European Union (Amendment) Act 2008, Parliament’s control over the simplified revision procedure and other key ratchets is limited to a vote on a Government motion. That is the case even if the simplified treaty changes or ratchet clauses are proposed to abolish something as important as a national veto over foreign policy.
Ms Gisela Stuart
There is something that I genuinely do not understand after reading through the notes. When the Government list all the things that will be covered by the ratchet clauses, is that an exhaustive list? What is the logic behind the list?
Mr Lidington
We shall have a debate on the ratchet clauses later this week when we deal with amendments to those parts of the Bill. I will be happy to go into more detail then, and I hope the hon. Lady will forgive me if I do not answer her question now.
We are giving Parliament and the public the opportunity to hold Ministers to account by spelling out the criteria needed to make a decision on whether the power or competence is transferred, and requiring Ministers to make a statement giving the reasons for their decision. Parliament can challenge this, and, if it so wishes during the legislative process, add further conditions of its own. If the public are dissatisfied with the Minister’s judgment—I stress it will be the Minister’s judgment, not Parliament’s—they will be able to use judicial review to check it further.
Mr Lidington
My hon. Friend is jumping several bridges in assuming that what might be proposed in those hypothetical circumstances would be an amendment of the European Union treaties rather than a separate intergovernmental treaty involving the member countries of the eurozone—and perhaps some others—who wished to participate in the sort of closer economic union that my hon. Friend described and fears.
I hope to say more about this later, but the Bill is based on a very clear principle agreed within the coalition —that the referendum lock should apply where there is a transfer of competence or of power from the United Kingdom to the institutions of the European Union. That is the defining criterion. The different categories of exemption apply where powers and competences are not being transferred from this country. That is the reason for the distinction set out in the Bill. It is not an arbitrary decision, but one based on a very clear principle.
Ms Stuart
I am still trying to understand what the Minister regards as significant. The monetary union is not a debt union at the moment, but it is about to become a debt union. We have an opt-out for monetary union. If the monetary union becomes a debt union, and thus far more significant, surely that is important to us—even though we have an opt-out.
Mr Lidington
If the measures in respect of greater economic union or perhaps fiscal union or shared responsibility for debts were to take the form of a European Union amendment treaty and involved the transfer of competences or powers from this country to the EU, the referendum lock would be triggered. If the eurozone countries choose to do their own thing and have their own intergovernmental treaty, which they can do quite distinct from any move to amend either the treaty on European Union or the treaty on the functioning of the European Union, we would not have a say—not if they chose to go down that route.
Mr Lidington
I was going to make the qualification that the amendment applies to measures within the simplified, not the ordinary, revision procedure. I think that that denies the public the chance to have their say on what are, ultimately, important decisions.
My hon. Friend the Member for Cheltenham asked a couple of detailed questions. He asked, for example, whether a technical change to allow for emergency flood relief, agreed to by means of the simplified revision procedure, would be subject to a referendum. As he will know, the so-called enabling clause, article 352, would be available in the event of a need to take urgent action within the European Union’s existing competences if that action were taken to attain the EU’s objectives and if there were no explicit provision to authorise that in the EU treaties, and emergency relief and international development are indeed competences that the European Union shares with member states. Clause 8 of the Bill provides for enhanced parliamentary controls prior to any agreement on the use of article 352.
I disagree with the hon. Gentleman on some of what he termed technical changes. I firmly believe that a referendum should be held on any change that would transfer competence or substantive power from this country to the EU permanently.
The hon. Gentleman also asked how many article 48(6) changes were currently being considered. Only one is being considered at present, the one that was promoted by the German Government and agreed at the December European Council. It affects only the eurozone, and as it does not transfer power or competence from this country to the European Union, there would be no need for a referendum.
Amendments 1 to 5 and amendment 7 would ensure that every treaty change required the consent of the British people in a referendum, even if it transferred no further competence or power from this country to Brussels. I suspect that this was not the authors’ intention, but even a treaty change that would repatriate power from the European Union to the United Kingdom would require a referendum in this country before it could be accepted. A treaty change to remove the United Kingdom’s veto over decisions to amend the number of advocates-general working in the European Court of Justice would require a referendum, as would a treaty change to allow Denmark to participate in justice and home affairs measures. The addition of 18 new MEPs before 2014—when they take their seats automatically anyway—for which the Bill provides would also require a referendum.
The issue is this: what is a suitable matter for a referendum? I believe that decisions that change who decides—decisions that move control over an area of policy from the United Kingdom to the EU—should require the consent of the British people; but not every treaty does that. Should a technical change such as the temporary alteration in the number of MEPs require a referendum? If Iceland decided to join the EU, should that require a national referendum? I think that that argument is very hard to justify, and might well discredit the principle of referendums from the point of view of voters. I also see no justification for referendums on treaty changes that do not apply to the United Kingdom. As I said earlier, in democratic terms, those are ultimately decisions for the countries to which the treaties apply, and not for us. No transfer of competence or of power from this country to the EU is associated with such changes.
Ms Stuart
The Minister is simply wrong. If Lisbon caps the total number of MEPs, if the number of MEPs is based on the population, if there is a minimum number of MEPs with “bookends”, and if a country such as Turkey makes a change, the number of MEPs in this country will be significantly lower and our voice will be lower. That constitutes a change of power, and it is no good denying it.
Mr Lidington
If we followed the hon. Lady’s logic, a referendum would be required in this country for any change whatsoever in the distribution of seats in either the European Parliament or the Council of Ministers.
By definition, a referendum in this country would also be required on any accession to the European Union, not just that of Turkey, because every time a new member state joined the European Union they would have a certain weighted share of votes in the Council of Ministers and a certain number of MEPs. I do not think that she is seriously arguing that.
European Union Bill
Baroness Stuart of Edgbaston Excerpts(15Â years, 9Â months ago)
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Mr Hague
That is something for the Opposition to consider and they will have some time to do so before the next election. The position set out in their amendment appears to be at best uncertain in that they agree with the principle of doing such a thing but not with doing it in practice. That is rather like the position they often occupied in government of being in favour of referendums but never actually holding one on any European matter for which they were responsible.
Ms Gisela Stuart
How would the Secretary of State describe a party that promised a referendum and then, in order to avoid one, simply changed the question, as the Members who are now in coalition with his party did in the last election?
Mr Hague
I am not here to answer for the party policies of other members of the coalition but for the coalition Government as a whole. The hon. Lady can rest assured that both parties in the coalition join strongly in their support for the Bill. It is sponsored by the Deputy Prime Minister and the Prime Minister, and it is therefore easy for people in a third party to join us in supporting it, as the hon. Lady will no doubt want to consider doing.
Ms Gisela Stuart
Accession treaties are exempt from the referendum requirement. Will the Foreign Secretary explain how the accession of Turkey, which by that stage would probably have a larger population than Germany, would not amount to a considerable loss of influence for the United Kingdom, given the system of qualified majority voting? Why is it therefore exempt from a referendum? I just do not get it.
Mr Hague
That is a different argument about referendums on accession treaties. Such treaties do not extend the powers and competences of the European Union, and so are not within the terms of the Bill. If the hon. Lady wants to advocate a referendum on the accession of Turkey, there will, sadly, be time for her to do so because the process will take a while. However, that is a separate argument from the extension of powers and competences.
Yvette Cooper
The hon. Gentleman needs to recognise that Britain will not grow without sufficient growth in our exports, especially given the sheer scale of the cuts that his Government are introducing. Without a sufficient increase in domestic demand, we are reliant on increasing our exports. Where does he want those exports to go, if he also wants us to turn our backs on Europe and allow the Irish economy to face serious problems? That would put a drag on our own economy and prospects as well.
Ms Gisela Stuart
Will my right hon. Friend confirm that the use of article 352 of the treaty on the functioning of the European Union will not require an Act of Parliament, and that the current bail-out of Ireland, which is a pretty significant activity to which we are contributing as part of our EU obligations, is being done under that article?
Afghanistan
Baroness Stuart of Edgbaston Excerpts(15Â years, 11Â months ago)
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Mr Hague
Yes, absolutely. That is critical for the security of the region and for the prosperity and stability of Pakistan, which is a prime national interest of this country. One thing that my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister and I have been busy doing over the past few weeks is trying to ensure that it is commonly agreed across Europe that the future prosperity and development of Pakistan, and our working closely and strategically with the Government of Pakistan, are absolutely essential and in the vital interests of the whole of Europe and the western world, not just of the United Kingdom. For instance, our achievement recently of trade concessions for Pakistan, which we secured at the last European Council last month, is a good illustration of that work.
Ms Gisela Stuart (Birmingham, Edgbaston) (Lab)
The Foreign Secretary mentioned the success of the criminal justice taskforce and the 440 convictions in the past year. Is he satisfied that those convicted actually served their sentences, and will he also update us on the progress made on the number of secure prison places in Afghanistan?
Mr Hague
We will have to satisfy ourselves about those things as we go along. The hon. Lady is quite right to draw attention to that. Where people are sentenced, we will want them to serve their sentences. We want more prosecutions to take place under the same procedures. We do not yet have enough secure prison places in Afghanistan and we are very careful about the terms under which we transfer prisoners to Afghan control. There is a need for more secure places and we will keep the House updated about that, too.
Linda Norgrove
Baroness Stuart of Edgbaston Excerpts(15Â years, 11Â months ago)
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Mr Hague
The hon. Gentleman is right to remind us of the scale of the casualties, of the names that we have so often heard read out in this House and of the fact that his constituent was the 339th of our servicemen and women to die in Afghanistan. The hon. Gentleman has a long-held different view about the merits of what we are doing in Afghanistan. What I can say is that this Government will, as we have pledged, present a regular review—a quarterly review—to the House of what we are achieving in Afghanistan, or what we are not achieving, what our immediate objectives are and what resources are required to attain those. I hope before the end of this month to be able to make a statement to the House with the latest such review, which will enable hon. Members of all views on this issue once again to take part in reviewing what we are doing and questioning the Government.
Ms Gisela Stuart (Birmingham, Edgbaston) (Lab)
The Foreign Secretary referred to the long-standing policy of successive Governments not to make concessions to hostage takers. The international security assistance force troops comprise soldiers from more than 30 member states, and those states do not always take the same view in their responses to hostage taking. Is he having any discussions with some of those member states to ensure that, at least when we are in the same theatre of operations, we take the same approach?
Mr Hague
Yes, and the hon. Lady makes an important point. I have raised this issue with Foreign Ministers of other nations during bilateral discussions in recent weeks, because clearly if one nation is prepared to pay or to sanction the payment of ransoms, that can undermine the international position. I also raised this very strongly in the discussion on terrorism at the United Nations Security Council in New York, which I attended in late September, during the United Nations General Assembly. I particularly stressed the point that it is against not only international practice, but international law for such ransoms to be paid, and I will regularly reinforce that point to other nations.
Kabul Conference
Baroness Stuart of Edgbaston Excerpts(16Â years, 2Â months ago)
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Mr Hague
Much of what my hon. Friend suggests is now part and parcel of the strategy that we are pursuing. Almost all the work of our forces will in future be based on embedded partnering with the Afghan forces. We shall be working and fighting alongside the Afghan soldiers themselves. It is interesting to note that, when that happens, our own forces’ casualties are generally lower. That is an important part of our strategy, as is the reintegration of former Taliban fighters. The right hon. Member for South Shields noted that not enough of that had happened yet, and that is true, but it is beginning to happen in places such as Nad Ali, where 60 or 70 approaches have been made by people wanting to come back into the local community. So I must stress that this is not just a military effort.
Ms Gisela Stuart (Birmingham, Edgbaston) (Lab)
Regrettably, Afghanistan remains one of the most corrupt places on the globe. I accept what the Foreign Secretary said about making progress in that regard, but what progress has been made on law enforcement? Specifically, how many prison places are available in Afghanistan in which offenders might successfully be held?
Mr Hague
The hon. Lady draws our attention to another important issue. Some progress is being made. The expansion of the Afghan national police force is also taking place; there are now 105,000 police officers, against a target of 109,000 by October. They may well hit their target for the number of police by October, which is intended to increase to 134,000 by October of next year. In the case of the police force, quality is an even greater issue than it is with the army, as she knows. That is why a lot of the increased international assistance is going into training the police force, and some of the assistance that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for International Development has announced is going in that direction. That work is therefore taking place and is among the most difficult work in Afghanistan, but it is a vital matter.
One area that was too weak in the Afghan Government’s preparation for the Kabul conference was the administration of justice. We stressed that at the Kabul conference, as did many other countries, and renewed work is being done in that regard. Only when people accept justice at the hands of the official authorities will the Taliban not hold sway in some parts of Afghanistan.
I do not have to hand an answer on the specific number of prison places, but I will write to the hon. Lady with the details.
European Affairs
Baroness Stuart of Edgbaston Excerpts(16Â years, 4Â months ago)
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Mr Hague
I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for his intervention. The role that we played together on the leather and footwear industries all-party group 20 years ago will for ever be somewhere in the recesses of my mind. I am very grateful for that reminder; the memory has just been retrieved from somewhere. He is absolutely right: there is a strong cross-party commitment on EU enlargement, to which I want to turn later in my speech. I want to talk specifically about Croatia later. He used an important phrase about countries joining when they have met the conditions. It is important that they meet the conditions for membership, rather than the conditions being changed to suit a particular country. I very much agree with what he said.
It is also our intention to approach European issues in a more coherent way across Whitehall than has sometimes been the case. In the three weeks for which I have held the office of Foreign Secretary, it has been apparent to my colleagues and me that under the previous Government, Departments could have worked together better, particularly more strategically. That point might also be relevant to previous Governments, and we intend to put it right. We are establishing a new Cabinet Committee on European affairs that I will chair, with the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change as the deputy chair. [Interruption.] It is another example of a good coalition in practice.
That Committee will allow the new Government to take a more holistic approach to EU issues than was sometimes the case in the past, and I hope it will achieve better results for Britain. We must ensure that we are always ahead of the game in Brussels, unlike the previous Government, of whom that could not always be said; the position in which they left us in relation to the hedge funds directive is a particular example. In doing so, we will be aided by achieving a more collegiate feeling in a two-party Cabinet than in the previous Cabinet of one party.
Ms Gisela Stuart (Birmingham, Edgbaston) (Lab)
I welcome the Foreign Secretary to his post and remind him that I still owe him the proceeds of a wager, when I said that his party would not leave the European conservative grouping, which, of course, it did. I have proved to be wrong on occasions. Returning to his point about greater co-ordination, will he say how he will arrive at a view about whether the Government agree with the proposals for a new European single credit agency operator? Will he explain how that will work?
Mr Hague
I am grateful to the hon. Lady for reminding me of our wager. Without giving too much away, I should say that I am looking forward to drinking with her the proceeds that she owes me. The wager was made on the understanding that I would join her so that we could consume the proceeds together. I am looking forward to doing that. [Interruption.] No, it is not beer on this occasion; it is something that we will drink together.
She asked how we would arrive at the decision. Well, that is exactly what the new European Affairs Committee of the Cabinet is there to do, supported by officials from both the Foreign Office and the Cabinet Office. There will be greater Foreign Office involvement and co-ordination of European affairs than has been the case for a long time. That is part of the more central role in government for the Foreign Office that I have always envisaged and am trying to bring about. That Committee will examine such issues, including the one to which the hon. Lady referred.
David Miliband
My hon. Friend makes an important point. I want to refer back to the exchange between my hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton North East (Emma Reynolds) and the Foreign Secretary. It is not often that he is stalled in his stride, but my hon. Friend managed to stall him by pointing out that his new-found enthusiasm for referendums on any transfer of competence, however small, stands in stark contrast to his loyal vote for the Maastricht treaty under his then Government. It also stands in stark contrast to all those Conservative Members who were in the House during the passage of the Single European Act and who loyally stuck to British parliamentary convention. That is, that we are a parliamentary democracy and that when there are fundamental transfers of power around the euro, for example, there should, of course, be a referendum, as all parties have agreed. It is the job of this Parliament, however, to scrutinise, debate and to vote on any other matters.
Although I shall not devote a long section of my speech to this subject today, we look forward to long debates about how the Foreign Secretary will justify spending £80 million to £100 million on referendums, for example, on a change in the organisation of the pension committee of the European Parliament, which is one consequence of the new-found policy adopted by the Government. We will have particular fun in asking the hon. Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark (Simon Hughes), who has long stood for a high degree of European integration, to explain why that is a good use of taxpayers’ money.
David Miliband
My comrade friend from Birmingham, Edgbaston is always too tempting for me not to give way to her.
Ms Stuart
Although this grieves me, let me put on the record that when it comes to referendums, all three parties have nothing to be proud of. We all went into the 2005 election promising one: Conservative Members kept saying “Oh, well, if it is passed, we cannot have one”, but they could perfectly well have had one; the Lib-Dems said, “Oh, we change the question; it should be in or out”; while we said that the document was different from the treaty. None of us came out of this with glory, and I think that we should recognise it.
David Miliband
I want to put on record the fact that my hon. Friend did cover herself with glory in respect of the consistency of the positions she took on European issues and—[Interruption.] I have to say to the Foreign Secretary that we have been working on that through separate channels. My hon. Friend achieved a remarkable result in the general election and her result was testimony to what independent-minded and strong constituency MPs can achieve in this country. I am very pleased that she will be applying her independent mind not only to everything that I say, but to everything that the Government say on European issues as well, pointing out the inconsistencies as they develop.
Many of our European partners will be looking forward to the appearance of the Prime Minister at the new European Council. They will be scratching their heads about some of the policies that the new Government will develop. It is not that they find coalition Governments alien—there are, of course, coalition Governments all over Europe—but they often assume that members of the Government will agree with each other on key foreign policy issues. The other leaders will know that the Conservative party has spent a large part of the last decade campaigning to “save the pound”, as they would put it, and that the Liberal Democrats have been campaigning for the last 10 years to ditch the pound. That is why the Foreign Secretary said that there was no more “fanatically federalist party” in Britain than the Liberal Democrats. That was before his new-found enthusiasm for their support on the Government Benches.
Ms Gisela Stuart (Birmingham, Edgbaston) (Lab)
It is a great pleasure to follow the maiden speech of the hon. Member for Wyre Forest (Mark Garnier), not least because I still fondly remember having a photograph taken in 1997 with David Lock, the then Labour Member for Wyre Forest. We all had red balloons and we travelled down to Westminster together. I am glad to say that, apart from David Lock, all of those in the photograph are still in the House. I wish the hon. Gentleman well. I am sure that people in his local carpet industry would have had one or two things to say if it had been forced to “go metric” on the weaving shuttles; I am sure that he will have one or two particular points that he wishes to bring to the House.
I wanted to speak today because Europe is facing a political and economic crisis which, although it has been brewing for a considerable time, is, in some ways, being denied both here and abroad. It is a political elite that is in denial, and in some sense that does not surprise me, because I still bear the scars of spending 18 months in Brussels attempting to write a European constitution. The democratic mandate was ignored then, too, and a political elite essentially rode roughshod over the wishes of the electorate.
Frankly, no party here has much to be proud of on the issue of referendums, nor do the Governments in the countries across Europe whose people said no when asked—and were simply ignored, as happened in Holland and France. Ireland’s people were simply asked twice; they were asked until they came up with the right answer. So there is something wrong going on in the house of Europe, and at the moment, that shows itself in terms of economics and the single currency.
Those who have warned against some of the problems of the single currency take little pleasure in being tempted to say, “I told you so”. People need to face up to what is happening at the moment, because this is not a question of one member of the eurozone having a financial crisis from which they can simply be bailed out. A bail-out is not the answer to the problem, nor is it in the current treaty provisions. The central issue in Greece is not associated with the pubic finances, although those are a problem. The real question is what happens when a country in the current monetary union loses competitiveness and cannot regain it. In essence, we are asking Greece to implement what amounts to two thirds of a traditional IMF package, which usually involves raising taxes and cutting public expenditure. However, the third and crucial element that always comes with recovery is depreciation of the currency, and that adjustment is not happening.
What the European monetary union calls “internal depreciation” has to replace a currency depreciation, but that is nothing other than a polite phrase for debt deflation. The programme currently recommended for Greece will crush output and increase both unemployment and private sector default. It will reduce Government revenues still further, and make public sector default and national bankruptcy even more likely.
Some people in countries such as Germany think that every country in Europe should behave like the Germans. As someone born in that country, I think that that is a perfectly reasonable expectation—but it is not the answer, as we cannot answer our economic problems by requiring every country to run a trade surplus. To be fair to Germany, it got out of its own economic crisis of the late 1990s and the first years of this century only at the expense of some of the other countries in the EMU.
So what are we going to do? Two solutions offer themselves. One is to transfer funds from countries with a current account surplus—in effect, those in the German bloc—but that assumes that a one-off payment is the answer. It is not. What is really required are year-on-year transfers, equivalent to what West Germany paid to the old East Germany. Let us be clear about this, however. Just for Greece, such a year-on-year transfer would amount to something like €35 billion to €40 billion a year. If we were talking about the default for Spain and Portugal, we would be looking at something like €100 billion a year, and that would wreck not only the German economy but its public finances as well.
The second solution would involve a massive devaluation of the euro.
Michael Connarty
I hope that my hon. Friend does not mind me intervening, but it seems that, having put down a set of rails, she is going to go all the way along until she crashes. Is there not a possibility that the fundamental flaws lie in how the failed economies acted? For example, Spain and Portugal put money into infrastructure and not education, with the result that people left school and built houses instead of educating themselves and creating a new economy. In Greece, the question centres on how much of the tax take that is due has been paid. Should we not concentrate on changing those economies so that they are stronger? Should we not use the 2020 strategy to rebuild growing economies, and not just bail them out?
Ms Stuart
That is a perfectly fair point, but there are two problems. The first goes back to the claim that we would have trade surpluses if only every country were like Germany, but things do not work that way. The second problem is how such a strategy would be policed.
There is a third difficulty, too. Every successful single currency requires significant transfers from the centre to deal with asymmetric economic shocks, and those transfers would be of the order of between 20% and 30% of the overall tax take. In Europe, that would require a European economic and political Government. The approach could not work in any other way, because we cannot expect countries to behave like that in the absence of any mechanisms for policing or transfer that would compensate them for their loss of competitiveness.
The problem in Greece is that it could become competitive again by devaluing its currency, but it is not allowed to do so. As a result, the approach outlined by my hon. Friend the Member for Linlithgow and East Falkirk (Michael Connarty) does not address the problem.
Ms Stuart
Thank you.
The second solution is a massive devaluation of the euro—a devaluation that some people say would have to amount to something like 50 cents against the dollar. A small devaluation would not be enough for Greece, and a large devaluation would be disastrous for the other countries in the EMU. For a country like Germany, a small devaluation would help competiveness, but a large devaluation would lead to incredibly high inflation that would ruin the economy again.
Again, what should we do? There is a least bad solution, although it is not a happy one. People argue that Greece should leave the euro, but I think that the least bad solution would be for the German bloc to leave the euro. That would, in a sense, allow for competitiveness to develop. Germany’s banks would still have to recapitalise, but it would be less costly to do this directly than it would be to do it indirectly by trying to rescue Greece.
The simple truth is that neither the eurozone countries nor any countries around the eurozone will get out of this mess without some very serious decisions being made, and there will be consequences for us all. As I understand it, the Prime Minister says that it is in Britain’s interests for there to be a stable and strong euro. If he says that out of diplomatic politeness, I understand and accept that, but with the current structure there is no way that he can have a stable euro and a strong euro. It will be weak in its basic economic fundamentals, and that is what has been wrong with something that was driven by political will but underpinned by excessively bad economics. The euro has always been a political project, and people keep assuming that given sufficient determination by the politicians, this structure will work. But it is fundamentally flawed.
It is then argued that the answer is more central control from Brussels, with its already incredible intrusion into countries’ sovereignty. Look at what has been happening to Greece, and what has been happening to Spanish Ministers and what they were told to do. Essentially, Brussels is now running Greece as if it were a protectorate. Is that the answer? I do not think it is. I do not think it is acceptable. That is the real difficulty—that nobody is facing up to the fact that the structure is so fundamentally economically flawed that it will not work.
That is why, when the Foreign Secretary and the Prime Minister go for the first time to European Union meetings in their new roles, I urge them to stop using phrases such as “having to protect our negotiating capital.” I think they have to face the fact that that is simply a polite phrase for not being prepared to say no when on occasions you need to say no. Again I have seen it, and the Foreign Secretary himself acknowledged that once people join the Government again, the tones get slightly softened. When a problem arises, the Brits will, as always, within a few hours say, “I’m sure there’s a way through this,” encouraged by our very able diplomats—who, I remind the House, are always in government, irrespective of which side of the House hon. Members are sitting, so it is in their interests to find these rather smooth solutions.
We are coming to a point where, to get out of serious economic difficulties, Britain will have, on occasions, to say no. When it comes to threats to our financial industries and our financial sector, it is no good protecting our negotiating capital. It is time to say no, just as the French would say no if we attacked their wine industry, or the Germans if we attacked their car industry. The price that will have to be paid if we do not become competitive again, if we do not protect our own currency, will not be paid by Members in the House, or by the Commission in Brussels. The political elite and the nomenklatura are always protected. The price will be paid by the old and the young, by the people who have no jobs, the people who lose their savings and the people who lose their pensions. The political elite have not been prepared to listen to them. It has been driving through a political project that was underpinned by bad economics. I hope that the people on the Government Benches will now show that when in government, they are able to act with the mettle that they pretended to have when they were in opposition.
Ms Gisela Stuart
The hon. Gentleman is a former Member of the European Parliament and before he gets too sanctimonious, I remind him that during the Convention on the Future of Europe the European Parliament refused to agree on one seat because the default position in the treaty is that the Parliament sits in Strasbourg. Without French agreement, it would have had to give up its seat in Brussels.
Chris Heaton-Harris
There are many other examples, from debates held over the years in all institutions in Europe—and from debates that I have read in this House—of wonderful ideas on what we could do with the buildings of Strasbourg or Brussels. The fact is that we are talking about a huge, expensive white elephant that the people of Britain think is yet another waste of taxpayers’ money.
I know that this will not make my hon. Friend the Minister particularly popular when he is in negotiations on the other side of the channel, but I just ask him to mention, every now and again when the French delegation gets a bit excited about reformulation of the common agricultural policy or something else—the French get excited about all sorts of things—that we have been very generous in allowing them to maintain the seat of the European Parliament in Strasbourg, because it is unpalatable to most of our electorates.
I wish my hon. Friend the greatest of luck in his new role. There are great difficulties across the continent at the moment. There is the crisis of the huge debt that many countries have, and the incongruous way in which that debt may have to be serviced by other members of the eurozone—I like to think that it would not be serviced by British taxpayers. There are other pressures, too. The hon. Member for Bassetlaw (John Mann) made the point that we cannot have British jobs for British workers, and talked about the pressures that future accessions might bring. I know from my time in the European Parliament, and from going round schools in what was my region and is now my constituency, how deeply unpopular among the British people the possible accession of Turkey could be. If we press forward with it, we will have a great deal of work to do in explaining to our electorate that it is the right thing for Britain and British workers.
Chris Bryant
I am glad that my hon. Friend is piping up, because we always have Private Frazer, “We’re doomed, Captain Mainwaring! We’re doomed!”, and he is always played by my hon. Friend.
Then, of course, we always have someone who is immensely sanctimonious—[Interruption.] And lo and behold, the hon. Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark (Simon Hughes) has arrived in the Chamber. Such sanctimony, I hope, will be a thing of the past from the Liberal Democrats. If there is one thing that they must have learned on becoming members of the coalition, it is that sanctimony must be a thing of the past for the Liberal Democrats. I can see that several Conservatives who were Members in the previous Parliament agree, and the hon. Gentleman is surely the vicar from “Dad’s Army”.
At this point I should like to welcome the Minister for Europe, the hon. Member for Aylesbury (Mr Lidington) to his post. He is a splendid man; I know him well; and he has very good intentions. Again, doubtless, he is about to show us that he has ludicrous politics, but he is a nice man. He is sometimes perhaps a little too precise in his politics, and that might render him the verger from “Dad’s Army”, who was just always a little too precise for his own good. However, the hon. Gentleman is an extremely intelligent man, who I think has led the most winning teams on “University Challenge”, and we look forward to his intelligence, which I am sure he will deploy throughout Europe over the coming months.
We heard a great number of maiden speeches, and that makes this debate rather different from any other, because remarkably few Members said anything about Europe. But, that is in the way of things, and there have been some excellent speeches. It is a shame—
Chris Bryant
I was about to make exactly that point. It is so rare for my hon. Friend to help me in any debates on Europe, but it is a great pleasure. It might just be a facet of today’s debate, but, as I was just about to say, it is an enormous shame that, while we have had several maiden speeches from women Opposition Members, we did not have a single one from a woman Government Member. I do not want to make a big partisan point about that, but we must achieve a House that is more representative of the whole of Britain.
There have been some excellent speeches. The hon. Member for Wyre Forest (Mark Garnier)—
The Minister for Europe (Mr David Lidington)
I thank the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) for his welcome to me on my first appearance in my new ministerial capacity in a European Union debate. If he looks at the repeated comments of my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary in opposition and since we came to office, he will see that, although we have said that we hope for a better relationship with Russia than has been the case in recent years, we do not regard it as something to be entered into lightly. We certainly expect Russia to abide by her international obligations, and events such as the occupation of territory, which is legitimately part of Georgia, are unacceptable. We are all too aware of the implications of the Litvinenko case and Moscow’s refusal so far to respond. Although our approach to Moscow will be positive—we hope for Russia’s co-operation on important global issues, such as counter-terrorist efforts and countering the threat of nuclear proliferation from Iran and other countries—it will also be cautious.
The hon. Gentleman will be all too aware of the complexities of the dispute in Cyprus, but the Government are intent on being energetic in supporting the relevant parties in seeking an agreement leading to the reunification of the island. That would be the best thing for both communities.
Ms Gisela Stuart
What is the British Government’s position if the United Nations says that Cyprus is a European problem and we need to sort it out?
Mr Lidington
With respect to the hon. Lady, we are not in that position yet. Talks have resumed between the Government in Nicosia and the representatives of the Turkish Cypriots, and I greatly hope that they have a more positive outcome than has been the case in the past couple of years.
I am with the hon. Member for Rhondda on Macedonia. It is important that we get a resolution to the dispute between Skopje and Athens. From our point of view, the sooner that Macedonia can be seen to be clearly on the path towards full EU membership, the better.
The hon. Gentleman needs to be careful when giving lectures about referendums and seeking popular consent. It is fair knockabout for him to say when responding to the hon. Member for Glasgow South West (Mr Davidson) that he detected some illogicality in the Government’s approach. There is complete logic in his approach to referendums: he does not want any, in any shape or form, on anything to do with the European Union’s future powers. That makes his position different from that which the two coalition parties have adopted and embodied in their agreement. We believe that power resides ultimately with the people, who should have the final say on any further initiative to transfer powers from the House and the British Government to Brussels.
Foreign Affairs and Defence
Baroness Stuart of Edgbaston Excerpts(16Â years, 4Â months ago)
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Mr Hague
That is a very good point. Where progress is being made in Afghanistan, it is being made because the people in those areas have faith in the continuation of the security improvements that have been made, and in the continued presence of the forces that have helped to deliver them.
It is possible to see those improvements. This weekend, for instance, when my right hon. Friends and I were in Nad Ali—a much-contested place—we were able to walk about and meet local people. We could walk around the whole town, visit the bazaar, go to the local clinic, and walk freely in the streets with the district governor. That would not have been possible only eight or nine months ago. Amid all the anxieties about Afghanistan and the casualties that we commemorate and recognise in the House each week, it is important for us also to explain to the British public where things are succeeding in Afghanistan, so that the full context is available to them.
Ms Gisela Stuart (Birmingham, Edgbaston) (Lab)
During his early consultations with Paris and Berlin in particular, did the Foreign Secretary receive a commitment from our NATO partners to continue to support the action in Afghanistan, not just in words but in deeds?
Mr Hague
As the hon. Lady knows, those countries are committed to supporting the NATO strategy. We have, of course, often wished that other allies in NATO could do more, and on our visit this weekend we certainly identified that there is a need to increase further the ability to train the Afghan national security forces. That is a particular area in which our close allies in Europe may be able to do more, so we will be having further discussions with them about it, including, I hope, on my visits to Paris and Berlin in the very near future.